


Center Stage

by owlaholic68



Category: Monster of the Week (Tabletop RPG), Original Work
Genre: Backstory, Cyberpunk, Dogs, Gen, Pre-Canon, Robots, Singing, also Lije trans, lije is scared of dogs so it is a traumatic event
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23640073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlaholic68/pseuds/owlaholic68
Summary: Johanna Sebastianne Bach was built to be a star. Her creator’s last success. But what will she do when she’s left on her own?
Kudos: 2





	Center Stage

“Johanna-”

She’s at Elijah’s side before he has time to finish his sentence. She bears a platter with a cup of coffee. One milk and one sugar just the way he likes it. “Here, Elijah. Did you sleep well?”

He gratefully takes the coffee. “Fine. Sing me a song, Johanna.”

“Yes, Elijah. Operatic, classical, or modern?”

“Classical.” He groans and accepts her helping hand to rise from bed, wincing at his creaking knees.

She starts to hum, then sing. “Here comes the sun…”

* * *

Her routine is simple. Help Elijah get ready for the day before they begin work. Composing, recording, or transcribing.

Johanna is programmed with perfect pitch and tone, extensive vocal training, light-speed sight-reading abilities, and an ear for melody. She is outfitted with a transplanted human voice box, mechanical ear sensors that can pick up frequencies far beyond human capabilities, and real implanted hair.

“Your hair needs a trim,” Elijah grumbles one afternoon.

“Yes, Elijah.” She twists a piece in a way she saw in a movie. Elijah takes her to a hair stylist friend since he considers himself to be useless at hair care. Johanna doesn’t understand; her creator chose to have real hair implanted instead of synthetic, and her creator can’t make mistakes – or can he?

At least he had the forethought to have her face permanently decorated to imitate the appearance of makeup. That saved time before performances.

She trills a tune on their way home from the hairdresser. Taps her fingers in rhythm on the handles of Elijah’s wheelchair as she pushes it.

It’s a lovely day. Johanna does not have emotions the way that humans do, but she can measure loveliness and happiness in other ways. The sun is very bright, the sky is extra blue. There is a slight breeze that ruffles her long hair and makes a musical rustle. A bird hops on the sidewalk and graces their ears with a chirp before flitting off.

This is how Johanna feels pleasure in life: there is music, there is sound, there is brightness.

* * *

This is how Johanna feels fear:

Fear is waking up alone with memory as fragmented as her body feels.

Fear is opening her mouth and hearing no noise come out.

“Hey, hey, calm down!” Someone grabs her and holds her down as she starts to panic.

She grabs at her throat. Feels with her fingers for damage.

“I had to disable your voicebox inputs so I could safely work on your chin,” the man explains. “Your voicebox is fine.” He rubs his ear. “More than fine, in fact. Shattered all the glass in my studio when you first woke up.”

Oh. The fear subsides.

* * *

Fear is the feel of concrete against her back. Fear is a dog’s bark, the snap of teeth in her face.

Johanna – no, Lije now – is stuck. She’d been looking at something when a dog had came out of nowhere and leapt onto her back.

Upon turning, her hair had gotten caught in something. And – and now the dog is on top of her and she can’t move and she can no longer be assured of her continued existence and that is the meaning of fear to Lije-

And she screams. Shatters the windows of every building for three city blocks.

Yanks her hair free. Hears something rip but doesn’t care, doesn’t look back, just runs and runs until the scene is long behind her. She flees to her little alleyway she’s been resting in and keeping her possessions.

Precious few items: a comb, a washcloth, a sewing kit, a pair of chunky headphones so old she has to jiggle the cord to make them work, and a music player.

The servos in her knees spasm from what humans would call fear but Lije would call uncertainty. She collapses and hugs her knees. Jams the headphones over her ears and blasts something with lots of trumpets.

She catches her reflection in the screen of the music player.

Her long luscious hair is cut jagged just below her shoulder. The remaining half still long. Too long. Logic tells her that it is getting in the way of her survival.

There is a small pair of scissors in the sewing kit. Dull and awkward to use. Lije takes handfuls of her long hair and hacks at it with the scissors. She’s trying to cut straight across to neaten the look but only worsens it like she always worsens everything.

The ripped part is now the longest. Everything else crooked and just as jagged. Her sweeping bangs now look wrong, longer than the rest of her hair. They’ve been getting in her way too. She takes the whole chunk of hair in one hand and cuts.

This is not Johanna anymore. She is not Johanna anymore, she is not that robot. Johanna was helpful and calm and useful. Johanna was a star, Johanna was wonderful and beautiful and smart.

Lije can sing and scream and that’s it. She’s still helpful when she can find someone to help. She’s calm when she can be assured of her continued existence. She’s not a star. She earns a few bucks singing on street corners. She wishes she had a violin; she loved to play the violin, loved to sing while doing so.

Lije can only hurt people and break things. She broke her beautiful hair. She understands now why Elijah had given her real hair that would grow and change, because _she_ would grow and change. Even when it was inconvenient, even when it hurt.

What is hurt to a robot?

Hurt is not being whole anymore. Hurt is opening your mouth to sing and getting a wrong note. Singing the wrong song to the wrong crowd. Hurt is no applause at the end of a concert. Hurt is when Elijah didn’t call her “Johanna”, when she wore a suit onstage instead of a gown, when her performances didn’t feel good.

Was does it mean to feel good? What is that to a robot?

Feeling good is not how she feels now. Feeling good is seeing other people smile. Good is resting her head on a windowsill to watch a bird sing, to feel that same answering warble in the back of her throat. Good is to feel confident that she will continue to exist, that she will continue to sing.

Lije can sing and scream and that’s it.

But at least she can still sing…


End file.
